So last night was my big Bethmas celebration. I mean, I celebrated my Bethday in a variety of ways throughout the week – like with cupcakes and Indian buffet dinner on my actual Bethday and by buying myself a wicked pairs of boots. But last night was the big party, what with it being a weekend night and all. Carefully planned to be on a day there wasn’t a Canucks game, I got a group of friends to come out the Nuba, a Lebanese restaurant. I’d never been there before, but a few friends have been raving about it lately, and they were able to take a reservation for a big group on a Saturday night, so Nuba it was. And what a great choice! Because it was a big group, they said we had to do a set menu, so I went with the vegetarian menu – I figured that (a) it’s my birthday, so I can be selfish, (b) about a third of my guests were vegetarians anyway, and (c) it’s my birthday, so I can be selfish. The food was outstanding and really reasonably priced – it was only $15 a head and they gave us SO. MUCH. FOOD1! And the service was great too. I’ll definitely be going back there!

Doing a birthday dinner in a big group like that is always hard, because no matter who you are talking to, you always feel like you are neglecting everyone you aren’t talking to at that moment. For me this is compounded by the fact that most of my friends don’t know most of my other friends2, so I feel like I should be making sure that I’m paying attention to everyone who doesn’t know anyone else. Thankfully, all my friends are super awesome (if I do say so myself), so it seemed like everyone had some good conversations going even if they didn’t know the people they were sitting near when they first got there!

After dinner, a select few3 of us went dancing at Canvas. My friend Patrice works there and since she was working last night, I decided that it would be a good club to go to. And what a great choice! As with Nuba, I’ve been to Canvas before, but it was awesome. The music was awesome and the dance floor was filled with oh so many hotties! Once we got up on the dance floor, we danced and danced and danced until it was late late late. And then we went for pizza. And then I slept the sleep of the just in the hotel room I’d booked downtown so I could not drink because I didn’t need to drive home. Happy Bethday to me!

Thanks to all my friends who came out to celebrate with me – I have the best friends in the whole world4 And special thanks to Shalu, Deepak, and Raul for buying me drinks and dinner and to Patrice for cover/drink at Canvas. And Cath, my Aquarius friend who bears alcohol instead of water! I managed to get sufficiently fed and sufficiently drunk5 and at the end of the night I realized I hadn’t spent a penny! So. Spoiled!

as usual, I’m going to point out that I have no relationship with Nuba – I’m truly just raving about it ‘cuz it was awesome [↩]

a few friends do know each other – like my grad school friends know each other and my science outreach friends know each other, etc., but I only had a few friends from each “group,” so that translated into not many people knowing each other [↩]

and by “select few,” I mean the four of us who selected ourselves to go out dancing! [↩]

and thanks to those who wanted to celebrate with me but couldn’t make it due to sick pets, personal issues, previous engagements and vast geographical distances. I love you all too! [↩]